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by butterycornbread



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Established Relationship, Hypothermia, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25485121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterycornbread/pseuds/butterycornbread
Summary: Makoto and Byakuya are locked in the morgue, and it’s getting colder.
Relationships: Naegi Makoto/Togami Byakuya
Comments: 16
Kudos: 163





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**Author's Note:**

> I DREAMT THIS LAST NIGHT I'M SORRY

They’ve pounded on the door. They’ve shouted at the top of their lungs. They’ve smashed, kicked, even tried to use the desk as a battering ram. Those were their moments of optimism. Of _maybe someone will hear us, find us, help us._ Of hope.

That’s gone now. Now, they’re curled together under the table, wrapped up in the tarps. Shelter, but precious little warmth. Makoto has an extra layer: Byakuya insisted he wear the silken jacket of his suit over his regular shirt, hoodie, and blazer. He feels cumbersome, swaddled. And cold, but that has become the default after all this time. How long has it been?

“Twenty-six minutes,” Byakuya forces through his teeth—clenched, Makoto knows, so they won’t chatter. There’s nothing his normally composed boyfriend can do, however, to stop the shivers racking his body. “Put your hood up.”

Makoto tries to look up at him, but in their position he can’t see anything but the elegant line of Byakuya’s jaw and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows hard. Makoto tries to shake his head slightly, but every movement is erratic with his spasming muscles. “N-No, you d . . . don’t have one.”

Byakuya’s exhale shudders through both of them. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s n-not f-fair,” Makoto says. His tongue feels clumsy in his mouth, like it might freeze to his teeth if he’s not careful. Words move sluggishly up his throat. “Your head wi-will be cold.”

By way of response, Byakuya wrenches Makoto’s hood up over his head. It breaks Makoto’s heart to watch his deft hands struggle to grasp the zipper of his hoodie long enough to pull it up to cover his mouth. Then Byakuya’s arms are back around him again, tighter than before. Makoto can’t stop seeing his fingertips, so deathly pale where they should be a healthy pink.

“You ha-have to take your c . . . coat back,” he says. “You-you’ll—”

“Shut up,” Byakuya snaps, breathless. “You can’t even speak.”

Makoto closes his eyes, even though it hurts and he’s half afraid they’ll freeze shut. He’s trying desperately to remember anything he might’ve been taught about hypothermia in school. He vaguely remembers a presentation on first-aid, but all he can recall is something about chest compressions. Maybe they’re doing this wrong; should they be up, moving around, making their blood pump? He can’t imagine standing now. All the energy he has left is dedicated to keeping his core warm. He can’t feel his hands, his feet, most of his legs. His lips have no sensation either, he realizes. Perhaps that’s why his speech is stunted.

“Twenty-seven,” Byakuya says. When he first hit twenty, he was furious. Now his voice is low, flat, thin. Makoto almost wishes for the rage to return. Even if it might tire Byakuya out faster, at least it might keep him warm.

He wonders if this is the work of one of the remaining students, or if the mastermind is to blame. Who knows, maybe this is another motive for the others, though Makoto’s brain is too frosted to work out how that would make sense. Maybe, then, someone jammed the door while Makoto and Byakuya were investigating together. Maybe someone stole the skeleton key from Kyoko. Maybe Kyoko did this herself.

Anything is possible. Makoto is too cold for reasoning. Too cold for most things. Too cold, he has begun to fear, to save himself from this.

“Makoto?” Byakuya asks suddenly, but in an odd tone. It’s less like he’s leading into a question and more like he’s blind and trying to locate him.

“I’m h-here,” Makoto says. His hands are bunched in the over-long sleeves of Byakuya’s jacket, but he reaches one up to touch Byakuya’s cheek anyway. “I ca-can’t go anywhere.”

“No,” Byakuya agrees, seemingly comforted by this, even if it is a deadly truth. He shifts to rest his chin on top of Makoto’s head, and only then does Makoto feel how shallow his breathing has become. “Where . . . are you?”

Makoto can’t reconcile those sentences. One sounded normal, and the next is back to the confused inquiry of before. He’s stiff and slow, but he pulls back enough to look at Byakuya’s face. It’s the mask of a ghoul: his boyfriend’s fair skin is ashen, his lips tinted blue, and his eyes are dim, muzzy with a bewilderment Makoto would never associate with the logical, intelligent scion of the Togami empire.

“I’m-m here,” Makoto mumbles again, and gingerly rubs Byakuya’s mouth. He wonders if his own lips are this terrible bloodless color. “In the bio lab, rem-mem-member?”

Byakuya looks at him, but his eyes don’t focus. He pants as if he’s out of breath, but his exhales don’t cloud the air like Makoto’s. “Why . . .” And then he’s pulling away completely, fighting the tarps that snug them together. “It’s too hot.”

Makoto thinks his ears are frozen at first. _Hot?_ He doesn’t know what hot means anymore. His world is cold. But Byakuya isn’t waiting for an explanation, he’s freeing himself from their makeshift blankets and fumbling at the buttons of his white shirt.

Every part of Makoto’s body protests it, but he sits up beneath the table. The air of the room is still, but it feels as though it slices into his skin where it touches his face. “Stop! C-Come back. You c-can’t be hot!”

Byakuya doesn’t say anything, just huffs in frustration and resorts to ripping the remaining buttons off with one harsh jerk of his arm. This is not the first time Makoto has seen him undressed, but here, in this cold, he seems so much more delicate than before. He is white as a bone in the poor light of this room, and in Makoto’s mind he seems brittle, frail. Byakuya is strong, but this cold has proven stronger—and this time he may not bend beneath the burden, but break.

“P-Please,” Makoto tries, reaching clumsily for him. “Lis-sten to me, you have—”

Byakuya is almost convulsing now, his shivers are so violent. He can’t unbuckle his belt, thankfully, nor can he rip it off. He flinches away from Makoto and collapses onto his back, but he doesn’t right himself. He just scratches viciously at his abdomen and chest, leaving a cross-hatch of angry red lines, as if he means to tear himself from his skin.

Makoto grabs his arms, but he barely has strength enough to hold on, let alone to hold him still. So he lets himself fall on top of Byakuya, pinning him with his weight and covering them both haphazardly with the tarps. Only now does it occur to him that perhaps Byakuya’s count has been off for quite some time.

Their faces are mere inches apart. Neither of them have the power to move. Whatever they had, it’s almost entirely used up. All that’s left is their hearts, beating rabbit-fast in their chests as if trying to break free of their ribs and close the remaining distance between them. Byakuya’s glasses have slipped low on his nose. With a wildly shaking hand, Makoto painstakingly pushes them back up so he can see. Byakuya isn’t shivering anymore. Makoto can feel his own just starting to fade.

“I’m sorry,” Byakuya whispers, barely audible.

Makoto wants to ask him what for, but his mouth has simply stopped. The beginning of the end. He manages to shake his head a little and hopes Byakuya can understand that none of this is his fault. All of it, the slights and the insults and the tempers, is forgiven. _Just stay with me._ He looks into Byakuya’s eyes. Byakuya stares back, unblinking. _Stay._

By the time he realizes Byakuya is no longer watching him, even though his eyes are open, Makoto is too cold to sob. His tears linger even after he’s gone, beaded like tiny crystals on his eyelashes, frozen before they could fall.


End file.
